


Two on a Box

by mcicioni



Category: Da uomo a uomo | Death Rides a Horse (1967)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:28:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: Ryan and Bill start working for a stagecoach company.This story does not follow the ending of the film. It can be read as a stand-alone a/u (if you know the characters), or as a sequel to my story “Rebuilding”.Not quite curtainfic, but as close as I have ever come to it.





	1. Steady Jobs

They tied their horses to the nearest hitching post and stood in front of the closed door of the Tucumcari Stage Company. They read the neatly hand-lettered sign stuck on the windowpane, glanced at the man sitting inside, behind a counter, and then looked at each other.

_“Drivers and shotgun guards wanted. Routes: Tucumcari- Santa Fe and Tucumcari-Albuquerque. Previous experience desirable. Good pay. Apply inside. Jack and Janet Fraser.”_

Bill’s eyes moved from the sign to the dust and mud in the main street of Tucumcari, taking in the few women with shopping baskets, the customers of the one saloon, the shabby entrance of the one hotel. Then he turned towards Ryan.

“Doesn’t say _driver and shotgun guard_ , it says _drivers and shotgun guards_.” He shook his head in disbelief. “How many can get themselves killed in this one-horse town?”

He didn’t really want to know. He spoke because he assumed that breaking the silence was the right thing to do when you rode with someone else – like sharing food and water, agreeing on which direction to take, discussing the pros and cons before taking a decision. You kept the other person in mind, you learned how not to get in each other’s way. You learned how to be close. It was hard, after fifteen years spent alone, planning revenge and training for it.

“So, we goin to ask?”

“May as well. But first,” there was just the faintest hint of amusement in Ryan’s voice, “we should ask what happened to the men who used to work for them.”

It wasn’t all hard, riding with Ryan. Knowing that you had each other’s backs. Eating Ryan’s plain, tasty food, making decent coffee afterwards because the coffee Ryan made was weak as horse piss. The campfires at night, the two of them stretched out side by side in the shared blankets, talking, or just lying there.

And the other things that happened between the blankets. Bill felt a small wave of heat rise up to his cheeks, managed to keep his face blank. Wonderful and, still, kind of scary. The things they did. The things they liked. The things they couldn’t explain to each other.

Bill stared at the sign again. All these thoughts came the moment you stopped anywhere. If you kept drifting, you didn’t think about things too much. Maybe drifting was better than a steady job. Easier to hold memories at bay if you didn’t have a home, because whatever home you found would always remind you of the home you’d lost, and of how you’d lost it.

“You all right?” Ryan asked, frowning.

“Yeah.” He briefly wondered if Ryan had nightmares, or memories that ambushed him by day and burned him inside at night. He probably did, but he probably knew how to deal with them. Like he dealt with everything else – unruffled, competent, controlled. Maybe Bill would be like that at fifty, as well. If nobody killed him first.

“Let’s go in.” Ryan knocked, waited for the man inside to say “Come in”, and waved Bill in ahead of him.

Jack Fraser was large and bearded, about sixty. He coolly appraised them as they approached the counter: “You drivers or shotgun guards?”

They answered together, Bill’s determined “Shotgun guard” blending with Ryan’s flat “Either.”

“You’re partners, right?” Fraser said. “I could take you both on, but …” His eyes focused on Ryan’s right hand, on the middle finger with a missing joint. “This is a small company, we only got five small coaches. Two pairs of horses each. But they’re strong horses. At times the driver needs to crack the whip with one hand and drive the team with the other. If he don’t know what he’s doing, the lines can slice right through his hand.”

“Fair warning,” Ryan drawled. “Try me.”

“I aim to,” Fraser said mildly, and got up to open a back door. He dragged his right leg a little. Behind the office was a square yard with a small corral; a coach was standing in the middle of the yard, two pairs of horses hitched and ready. Ryan nodded, walked up to the coach, put a foot on the wheel hub and climbed onto the box seat.

Fraser limped towards a horse tied up near the corral. “Take it up the hill, slow. Then come down, as fast as if Injuns was chasin you. And stop parallel to the water trough.” He mounted up. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Me too,” Bill said shortly, striding off to fetch his gray.

Two reins held firmly in each hand, Ryan released the brake, clicked his tongue at the horses and set off, making sure the lead team moved at a slow, steady clip and the other team kept pace without crowding the leads. Bill and Fraser followed him at a little distance, Bill’s eyes constantly moving from Fraser to the progress of the stage.

On top of the hill, Ryan turned swiftly and easily, then flicked the reins on the horses’ rumps, cracked the whip once, and the coach flew down the track in a cloud of dust, hooves pounding, wheels whirring, and Ryan unperturbed, in perfect control. Towards the bottom of the rise, he pulled on the reins, gently at first, then firmly, and the coach came to a sliding stop beside the trough.

Fraser and Bill dismounted, and Bill grinned up towards the box. Ryan pulled his pipe out of his pocket, lit it, and puffed a little cloud of smoke down in Fraser’s direction. “The near side leader wants to pull outwards.” He wrapped the reins around the brake handle and jumped down.

“Glad you noticed. Up to you not to let him. Young man, it’s your turn.”

Fraser went back to the office and limped out a moment later, carrying a short double-barrelled twelve-gauge scattergun and a dozen small, empty cans of beans. He walked about fifteen yards to a low adobe wall and lined up the cans on it.

“See what you can do, son.”

Bill checked that the shotgun was loaded with two cartridges of buckshot, held it against his body at waist-height, aimed, and fired twice in quick succession. Sunlight shone through the myriad of holes that riddled all the cans.

“Good.” Fraser took the shotgun back inside, and came out carrying a Henry repeater rifle. He walked past the adobe wall, towards the back of a haycart, where sixteen empty glass bottles were standing in an uneven row.

“Think you can hit all of them?”

Bill nodded. He had done this so many times, nearly every day for more than ten years, at what was left of the Meceita Ranch. He held out a hand for the cartridges, counted sixteen, swiftly slid them into the breech, and in a single easy movement raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim and squeezed the trigger eight times, ejecting each spent cartridge with one smooth down stroke of the lever. Eight bottles crashed to the ground.

“That’s half,” he said almost under his breath, then suddenly dived forward and rolled on the ground, rifle still glued to his shoulder. He fired four times, rolled again, fired four more times. The remaining bottles were reduced to tiny shards.

Bill got up, ignoring Fraser’s muttered “Makes it look easy, don’t he.”

“He’s had some practice,” Ryan said drily, lightly slapping Bill’s back and arms to get some earth and dust off his clothes.

“All right,” Fraser said. “You’re hired, both of you. Come on inside and sign the contracts. But first I’ve got to tell you a few things.”

The two men looked at him in silence, and he went on: “Stages leave and arrive from Tucumcari, Albuquerque or Santa Fe. Every thirty miles or so there’s a relay station, where there’s a change of horses, drivers and guards.”

“Stages travel day and night, right?” Bill asked.

“Yeah. Two food and rest stops a day, one hour each. Any questions?” He stopped, waited a moment and went on: “Pay’s a hundred a month for the driver, eighty-five for the guard.”

“Not bad,” Ryan commented. “How many have you lost so far?”

Fraser frowned, then shrugged. “One driver, two guards. One guard fell off the seat when a wheel came lose in the Sangre De Cristo mountains, the other guard and the driver were shot in a holdup.” He gave them an appraising look. “You two look like you can take care of yourselves.” He reflected for a moment, and added: “You can get rooms at the hotel, fifty cents a day each. Or, the stage company has a cabin just outside of town. It’s kind of run down, but rent’s only fifteen dollars a month. Up to you.”

“We’ll go have a look,” Bill said noncommittally. “So, what do we sign?”

Fraser rummaged among the papers on his desk. “Where did Janet leave ….? Oh. Here.” He produced four printed sheets, showed them where to sign, and gave each man a copy of his contract. “First stage leaves at noon tomorrow. Report half an hour earlier. Good night.”

Ryan opened the door and waved Bill out ahead of him. Dusk was falling, the sky was blue-grey with streaks of white and red. Bill breathed deeply; they had jobs, and here there was bound to be somewhere where they could eat food that they hadn’t shot, washed down with beer instead of creek water. He turned towards Ryan: “Supper?”

Ryan shook his head. “A bath.” He quickly surveyed Bill from dusty hat to unshaven cheeks to stained trousers to muddy boots. “Having a wash wouldn’t hurt you either.”

 

 

It wasn’t that bad, Bill admitted to himself, filling his hands with suds, rubbing them into his hair and ducking under the water to rinse. Canvas sheets stretched out between the tubs provided flimsy privacy to the occupants, and being “squeaky clean” reminded him of Saturday nights at the Meceita Ranch – his mother checking if he had washed between his toes, his sister giving him clean underwear and socks, his father shaving for the Sunday service. Some memories were knives slashing through his guts, some others, like the Saturday night baths, were hands that squeezed gently and just took some of his breath away.

“You gone to sleep in there?” The canvas partition was pushed aside and Ryan walked in, looking freshly-shaven and clean. Bill shook his head, partly as answer to the question, and partly in wonder at Ryan’s obsession with daily washing and shaving.

“Come on.” Ryan rolled his sleeves up, grabbed soap and washcloth and started washing Bill’s back in swift sweeping strokes. Bill shuddered a little. They hadn’t touched much before Bill had returned to El Viento and things had changed between them. Now it was different, they touched each other freely, taking what they wanted, each knowing that the other wanted it too. Bill thought that, if they ever split up for good, his body would become stiff and dry, like when Walcott’s men had buried him alive, with his mouth full of salt.

Ryan tapped one of Bill’s arms, Bill lifted it, and Ryan scrubbed his armpit, in a no-nonsense way, and yet Bill felt himself harden and fill. He hoped that the water was cloudy enough to hide things. But Ryan did not seem to have sex on his mind.

“Need to buy a pair of gloves tomorrow morning,” Ryan said, half to himself. He tapped Bill’s other arm and washed the armpit. “We can both use them if you ever want to swap jobs.”

“No,” Bill said at once.

Ryan made a soft interrogative noise. Bill half-turned to look up at him: “They already got a driver.”

“Never say never,” Ryan laughed.

Riding together, they had started learning when to push and when to let things slide. Neither of them was very good at it yet. “I don’t drive,” Bill said flatly. He heard a brief sigh, then felt a heavy hand push his head down, and his eyes and mouth filled with dirty bathwater.

He resurfaced, glaring, and snatched the towel Ryan was holding out. “Thanks,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Anytime.” As Bill climbed out of the tub and started rubbing himself dry, Ryan quickly moved to stand behind him, wrapped a warm dry hand around Bill’s waist and the other around his wet, still half-erect cock, and without a word gave him a series of short, hard jerks, bringing him almost to the edge. Bill closed his eyes, leaned backwards and thrust strongly, blindly into Ryan’s fist, and a few moments later shuddered and threw his head back and spilled into the towel, his legs almost giving way under him.

“That was good,” he mumbled, eyes still half-shut, fumbling with clean underwear and shirtsleeves, boneless and embarrassed and happy.

“My pleasure.” Ryan sounded as if he sort of meant it. He brushed the back of his hand over Bill’s cheek, a caress turning into a light, almost tender cuff to the back of Bill’s head. “Let’s go eat.”

 

 

It was dark when they found Fraser’s cabin at the edge of town. The outbuilding leaned to the right, the front fence had collapsed, and the porch was full of holes and overgrown with weeds. They exchanged surprised looks when they saw smoke coming out of the chimney, and a light shining inside.

A woman stepped out onto the porch, carrying a broom and a canvas sack full of rags and assorted junk. “Good evening.” She was Bill’s age, tall, dark-haired, with a longish nose and direct hazel eyes. Her hair was full of cobwebs, and her dress was covered in smudges.

“I’ve tried to clean up a little, but you’ll have to do most of the hard work. If you take the place, that is. I’ve left some sheets and a couple of pans, just in case. But if you hate it, the hotel’s down the road, on the left.” She laughed briefly and held out her right hand. “Oh, and I’m Janet Fraser, Jack Fraser’s daughter. I keep the books for the business. Welcome, Mr Meceita and Mr Ryan. Please call me Janet, we aren’t formal around here.”

“I’m Bill,” Bill said cautiously.

She looked from him to Ryan. “May I ask if you have a first name?”

He gave her a small smile. “You may ask. Ryan’ll do.”

She flashed him an open grin. “Right. I hope you’ll enjoy working with us, both of you.” She hurried off towards the office, broomstick held proudly in one hand, sack swinging cheerfully in the other.

They stepped inside and surveyed the interior: a bare cupboard, two broken-down shelves, a scratched table with three rickety chairs, a double bed with a dirty mattress, and a lit stove. On the table lay a freshly-baked loaf of bread.

Bill went to the front door. It locked easily. The back door had a rusty bolt. It would do for the night. He was inside. With his memories of black smoke, crackling flames, the smell of burning wood and charred flesh. And a new thought danced before his eyes, hit him in the stomach and disappeared: In a new home, there would be new memories. And maybe the new ones would chase away some of the old ones.

He shook his head: no, it was impossible. “Nice place,” he smirked.

Ryan gave him a level look. “Just needs a little work,” he said. “And the back window faces the mountains.”

 

 

The clock in Fraser’s office had just struck noon. Bill was standing outside the door, chewing on a toothpick and watching the passengers file out: an elderly married couple, a young man with an armful of law books, a drover wearing chaps, and the deputy sheriff. Their first passengers. He kept his face blank, fighting against a little smile that wanted to spread from his mouth to his cheeks and eyes.

“All aboard, stage’s leavin,” he shouted out, and Fraser nodded, and Janet Fraser gave him a little wave. Ryan was already on the box, reins loose between gloved fingers, one foot on the brake, taking the last puff on his pipe.

Bill closed the door behind the last passenger, climbed onto the box and settled down, shotgun across his knees. Ryan put his pipe out on the side rail, stuck it into his pocket and kicked off the brake. Their legs brushed and they looked at each other.

“Let’s go.”


	2. Strings

The stage was waiting beside the San Felipe Church in the Albuquerque Plaza. At eight in the morning the sky was already bright blue, and a few morning clouds were drifting around the harmonious flat-roofed buildings of the square.

Ryan made sure his driving gloves were in his pocket before lighting the first pipe of the day. They were due to leave at eight-thirty; Bill had gone to the office to collect the passenger list, and no passengers had turned up yet.

Three weeks of driving without any accidents, or holdups, or scares, except for a rattler peacefully asleep in the middle of the road and one fool toddler who had almost managed to grab a horse’s tail before being intercepted and swatted by his mother. Bill was sort of disappointed by never having to use rifle and shotgun, and was beginning to complain about being “as useless as boots on a rattlesnake.” Never having anyone draw on him and never having to draw on anyone suited Ryan just fine; he practised regularly behind the place they lived in, but was quite happy if his handgun rested, perfectly oiled and checked, in its holster by day, and hanging on the bedpost at night.

Thinking of the cabin they lived in, he cast a quick glance at the package lying at his feet. More evidence that he was getting soft and sedentary, probably. He bent his knees, picked it up and with a little effort lifted it to the box seat, and from there to the roof rack, where he secured it with a length of rope.

“We ready to go?” Bill sauntered towards him, broken shotgun under an armpit. “What’d you put on the roof? And where are the passengers?”

“Give them another ten minutes.” Ryan cast a quick glance at the passenger list. “They’re a bunch of foreigners, maybe they got lost.”

“We did not get lost,” an educated, barely accented voice informed them, as a very tall, blond-haired man in his forties came towards them, carrying a leather bag and a violin case. “We needed to check our instruments before this long trip.” He put the bag down and extended a long, elegant hand. “We’re a string quartet. Max Nilsson, first violin.”

“Luigi Moretti, second violin.” This one was shortish, dark-haired, with a goatee beard and scuffed shoes. “We are going to Santa Fe, to play in the San Miguel Mission.”

“Philippe Carnaux, viola.” A deep voice, a mop of greying curls and an absent-minded expression; his instrument case was slightly larger than those of the two violinists.

“Andreas Dressler, cello.” He looked old, sixty-five or seventy, his hair was completely white, and he struggled with a heavy, bulky case. “Please, not on the roof, no. May it go in the coach with us?”

“You’re in luck, we got no other passengers. We’ll give you a hand.” It took a good five minutes to fit men and instruments in the cramped interior of the stage; Dressler sat with an arm around his upright cello, and Nilsson had to stretch his long legs between the feet of his shorter colleagues.

“All right, let’s get going.”

The stage rolled and bounced along. At first flat and flanked by shrubs and boulders, the road began to rise gently, piñon and juniper trees began to appear, and there were firs up ahead. The air was full of the smell of fernbush and dogwood. Ryan felt relaxed, contented.

“Goin to be over a week before we get back to Tucumcari,” Bill said resignedly. Then he half-turned, glanced at the package on the roof and raised an eyebrow towards Ryan.

“Two cans of white paint,” Ryan explained. “For the outside of the cabin. But we have to replace the door and the windows first, they’re more rotten than the rest of the place.”

Bill eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you lookin at me when you’re talkin about the doors and windows?”

“Because you’re good at it,” Ryan said evenly. “Saw how you fixed the table and chairs. Makes a difference, sitting down without falling off.”

“I’m goin to fix the bed next,” Bill showed his teeth in a quick grin and lowered his voice. “It’ll make a difference, doin business without slidin through the slats.” He paused, laughed briefly. “Once it’s fixed, we can make it gallop.”

Then they fell silent and listened to the wheels whining and bumping against the ruts of the road. Ryan kept an eye on the near side leader, occasionally pulling on his rein to encourage him to set a steady pace. The road ahead was uphill, but fairly straight. Ryan let his thoughts roll along with the coach.

A coat of paint, new windowframes, a steadier bed. A slightly more comfortable place to live. Things as they were suited him fine, a roof over his head and a partner, for as long as it lasted. Of course it wouldn’t last long; no promises, no strings, and sooner or later Bill was bound to get bored and ride off.

“Anythin wrong?’

“No. Just watching the road ahead.”

“Next relay station is in about three hours.”

“Right.”

 

 

 

“We met two years ago. On the ship. Max was in first class, we were in third class.”

The rules of the relay station gave them an hour to use the privy, wash, and eat, in that order. They had done the first two and now were all sitting around a table, a bowl of stew in front of each of them.

“Why were you comin here? No jobs where you came from?”

“Not for us,” Moretti said glumly. “Andreas, Philippe and I were friends, we all worked at La Scala …” He paused, noticing the blank looks on Ryan’s and Bill’s face: “A music theatre in Italy. But the managers didn’t like our politics. So they fired us.”

“We are anarchists,” Dressler explained. And he, Carnaux and Moretti took turns to provide short elucidations: “We don’t believe in government.” “We believe in voluntary associations.” “We’re pacifists.” “We aim at being equal. Sharing.” “Like our quartet, nobody’s in charge, we decide together, what to play, how to play.”

“But wherever we go, governments and the police see us as dangerous vermin,” Moretti concluded. “So, many of us keep travelling. Always going somewhere else. Hoping. That’s why the three of us came to this country.”

  
“I am not an anarchist,” Nilsson clarified. “I left Sweden because the position of first violin in the Royal Swedish Orchestra went to another man. Not a good reason. But there I was.” There was a self-deprecating undertone in his fluent English. “And one day, I was tired of strolling around first class, and I went slumming in third class,” a wry self-mocking grimace, “and I heard three men practising. They were excellent. I asked if I could join them. They accepted me. Here we are.”

  
“We play here, we play there,” Dressler smiled with mild irony. “Sometimes we even get paid for it.”

  
Ryan put down his cup of coffee and got up. “I’ll go check the fresh horses. We leave in five minutes.”

  
“Mr Ryan.” Nilsson’s eyes swept around the table, stopping on each of his companions. They all nodded. “We would be delighted if you and Mr … Meceita, is it? could come and hear our Haydn concert. On Friday or Saturday. If you’re going to be anywhere near Santa Fe, we’ll arrange for tickets for you.” Nilsson caught Bill’s frown, misinterpreted it and smiled. “You won’t have to dress up. Maybe dust up a little.”

  
“According to our schedule, we’re due back in Santa Fe on Friday. We’ll come,” Ryan said, heading for the door and ignoring Bill’s glare. Who or what _haden_ was, they were going to find out. “And we’ll dust up.”

 

 

San Miguel Mission was packed, and the concert was halfway through. The audience (mostly white with a sprinkling of Mexicans, attire ranging from Sunday suits to pearls and dinner jackets) had heard, and applauded, two pieces by Joseph Haydn: one called _The Lark_ and another called _The Frog_ , where at the end Nilsson did some sort of plucking with his fingers, his bow and a string of his violin, and it did sound like a frog croaking, and the audience smiled, and Ryan and Bill looked at each other and shook their heads and half-smiled too. The four musicians, sitting in a semicircle on a small stage, looked quite pleased with themselves. Bill, slouching in his chair, looked as if he was going to sleep; Ryan was about to elbow him in the ribs, when Bill opened his eyes, and they were bright and full of amazement, almost awe.

  
“Great fiddlin,” he whispered.

  
Nilsson stood up and tapped his music stand lightly with his bow. “Our third piece is the String Quartet Opus Thirty-three, Number Two, _The Joke_.”

  
They played with apparently effortless ease, Nilsson concentrating, Dressler throwing his head back, Moretti smiling, Carnaux with a faraway look in his eyes. Ryan had no knowledge of music other than saloon pianos and the tunes he had heard long ago at barn dances in his small town in Nebraska, but he had good ears, and could tell that a short phrase was being repeated at regular intervals; he caught both himself and Bill softly beating time with a foot every time this happened. These anarchists did not believe in law and order, but did have order and discipline when they played, and the result was pleasant. Ryan felt his body relax, like when he was in jail and they sent him out on work details, and he could stretch his back and look at the mountains. And other things started flowing through his mind and blending with each other – the first moment the prison gates closed behind him, and he looked at the mountains as a free man, and there were a couple of birds soaring above him; the endless prairie of western Nebraska, not one tree in sight; and the pines and cottonwoods of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, with creeks and waterfalls …

  
The music stopped. Only about half of the audience started applauding, and Ryan frowned slightly and looked around. The four players made as if they were going to get up, and then suddenly Nilsson played an extremely loud note, and there were a couple of moments of jaunty fast tempo, then another, longer pause with the audience looking in bewilderment at one another, then the music resumed, and ended. The players got up, laughing and bowing among thunderous applause. _That_ was the joke, Ryan realised, and looked at Bill’s disoriented scowl and laughed, and Bill understood and huffed out a brief laugh in reply.

  
“And we will close with the String Quartet in F Major, Opus Three, Number Five.”

This started out serious, almost solemn, but after five minutes or so it suddenly became tender and graceful, with a tune Ryan could follow, which wound up and around itself and then returned, and Ryan thought of trying to fish in the creek behind their homestead in Nebraska, and being happy even when he didn’t catch anything, and lying on his back in the grass, looking at the clouds. Then he thought of Bill asleep in bed beside him, not writhing in the grip of a nightmare, and the two of them waking up on the mornings when they didn’t have an early start, and of maybe never having to draw his gun again, or as little as possible. When the piece ended and everyone applauded, he joined in, gratefully and loudly, and sensed Bill looking at him, but neither said anything.

And it was over, and they went to say goodbye to their passengers.

“Good luck in this country,” Ryan said. “Even if it’s not all that equal, and it’s got a government.”

"As our comrades in Italy used to say, _nostra patria e' il mondo intero_ , the whole world is our country," Moretti said, a little wistfully.

“We are imperfect,” Dressler added. “America is imperfect. But it has taken us in. We will play here, live here, die here.”

“And maybe try to make a few things in America more equal before we die,” Carnaux concluded quietly.

Bill just said “Thank you,” shook their hands hard, and turned in the direction of the hotel. As he started walking, he began to whistle, low and in tune, and it was the last piece the quartet had played, the tender, graceful, contented part.

Ryan caught up with him and fell into step with him, listening, thinking of those four different men who had learned how to play together, and had formed a partnership that was something greater than each of them. But now Bill’s whistling, unlike the music the quartet had played, was not having a soothing effect on him. As he walked, he remembered who he was – he was no musician dreaming about larks and frogs and pacifism, he was an ageing loner who had fought and stolen and robbed and killed since he was sixteen. Too old to start anew, too old to make a partnership work. Bill was young, for him there was hope. Soon he would start thinking of a family, a house and a life he could build from scratch, with a girl to help him. And Ryan would keep drifting, alone; being alone was something a man learned slowly and painfully, and kept learning as life went on. He’d find straight jobs with little or no shooting, and be grateful that he probably wouldn’t wind up with a bullet in his back, and that he had had this time with Bill, short as it was.

“What’s on your mind, grandpa?”

Ryan blinked, shook himself, fished out his pipe, lit it.

Bill kept staring at him. “Hey. You ain’t said one word since we left the fiddlers. What’s wrong?”

Ryan exhaled a puff of smoke and a short impatient sigh. “Nothing.” He sidestepped Bill and kept walking.

Bill was at his side again, unsmiling. “You been broodin. Broodin's dangerous, makes your head rot." A pause. “I _know_. So,” the barest hint of a smile, “I'm goin to make you stop.”

"Are you now?"

"Yeah. Soon as we get to the hotel." 

In their hotel room, Bill locked the door, leaned against it, and waited for Ryan to sit down.

“Tell me what you want me to do.” Bill’s face was deadpan, but Ryan could see a little dancing light at the back of his eyes, and warmth, and hunger. “Go on. You like doin that.”

Heat rose to Ryan’s neck and cheeks. He had trained himself long ago to control his responses and not to give anything away; nothing in his face betrayed the turmoil of desire Bill’s words had roused in his guts. Yes. He liked giving Bill orders. He looked Bill over slowly, glad that his coat was covering the growing bulge in his crotch.

“All right.” A long moment’s pause. “Stand up straight. Unbuckle your gunbelt.”

Eyes locked into Ryan’s, Bill straightened up, undid the buckle, laid his gunbelt on the table. Ryan exhaled a small, soft breath.

“Take off your jacket. Slow.”

Button by button, Bill opened his jacket, shrugged it off and dropped it on the floor.

“Pick it up and fold it.”

Bill complied, the faintest shadow of a smile playing on his lips.

“Now your trousers.” Even those funny braces Bill still wore could make Ryan’s cock throb, when Bill let them slide off his shoulders before working on the buttons, one by one.

“Your underwear.” Ryan’s trousers were almost unbearably tight now, as he watched Bill free his erection from trousers and long johns. He opened his thighs and stretched out his legs, but the hardness was still there, uncomfortable, wonderful.

“The shirt.” It was the last piece of clothing. Ryan’s eyes travelled along Bill’s body. He had seen Bill naked before, of course. But every time it was a surprise to see how beautiful he was: long legs, muscular, unscarred shoulders, a broad chest almost completely hairless, in contrast with the thick reddish-blond bush that went from navel to balls.

Bill was standing motionless before him, out of touch, his lips barely parted: “Now you enjoy yourself," he said, low and forceful. "I like watchin.”

Ryan shook his head; he’d had more than enough of his own hand after fifteen years. He stood up, took off his gunbelt, swiftly shoved his own trousers and underwear down past his knees, and sat down again.

“Come over here.”

Bill took the two steps which separated them, and stood in front of Ryan. Ryan could feel the warmth of his body, the warmth of his breath. He reached for Bill’s cock, gently placed it between his own thighs, and squeezed it between them. “Now _you_ enjoy yourself.”

Bill flashed him a small grin: “I always got to do all the work.” And he started thrusting, experimentally, almost hesitantly at first, then harder and faster as he got the idea and liked it, bare arms pressing down on Ryan’s shoulders, dark-pink nipples that grew as hard as pebbles when Ryan licked and sucked them, cock slick and hot pushing against Ryan’s. Ryan gripped and squeezed him with all the strength of his thighs, shivers running down his spine, breath coming in short hot gasps. It didn’t last long: Bill tensed, threw his head back and spilled in long wild spurts, and Ryan blew out a long soft breath and followed him, silently, his body shaking in the pleasure of release.

Bill bent down, took Ryan’s head between his hands and kissed him, gentle and playful, nibbling at his mustache, sucking his lips, thrusting a little with his tongue.

“Well,” he breathed against Ryan’s lips. “I made you stop broodin, like I said I would.” A pause. "Because ... " He shrugged, picked up his discarded shirt and cleaned himself and Ryan with its tails. “And next time it’s my turn. I order you around, you strip and I watch. And then we do what we just did.”

Ryan felt his flesh stir all over again, in surprised anticipation. “Count on it.”

He went to sleep half smiling, next to Bill’s warm body. For as long as it lasted, he was going to give what he could, take what he was given, and be contented.


	3. Lavinia

Bill stuck a hand in his vest pocket and pulled out his watch. He’d never owned one before, and eighty-five dollars a month were more than enough to allow himself a small self-indulgence. He stretched: three days’ work with no breaks was as much as he could take, and it would be good to get home that night. Assuming their ramshackle cabin could be called that. Then he checked his watch and frowned: Ryan was five minutes late, and only three passengers were gathered in the main Plaza of Santa Fe, waiting to start their trip to Tucumcari.

“All right, everybody aboard. Driver’ll be here in a minute or two.”

He checked the names of the three passengers as they climbed in: a nun, a priest, a saloon girl. One female and two male passengers missing.

“Everybody here?” Ryan walked into the Plaza, pocketing a packet of tobacco.

“Half are missin. We’ll have to leave them behind,” Bill informed him, handing over the passenger list.

“Wait, please wait.” An elderly woman was hurrying towards the stage, hampered by a small carpetbag in one hand and a large square package under the other arm.

They nodded at her: “Take it easy, ma’am. You heading for Tucumcari?”

  
“No, I got a ticket as far as the relay station at Glorieta Pass.”

Ryan consulted the list. “Mrs Thompson?”

  
“Yes. Lavinia Thompson.” She handed Ryan her ticket in a slow, measured movement. She was tall and thin, her black skin dried and wrinkled by sun, age and hard work; wide grey streaks were visible in the tight knot of her hair, covered by an old straw hat. Her clothes were similarly worn, plain and scrupulously clean.

  
“You ride up top, you hear?” Two men addressed her as they approached the stage, both white, in their thirties, beefy, wearing badly-fitting suits and derbies. “Or maybe you can sit outside, at the back.”

  
“Those who got tickets sit inside. Anyone objects, they can wait till the next stage.” Ryan spoke softly, while casually flicking the edge of his coat open, showing the butt of his gun resting against his stomach.

  
“Your choice,” Bill added, strolling towards Ryan, shotgun under his right armpit.

  
“Plenty of room for everybody,” the priest said from inside the coach. He and the other two women swiftly rearranged themselves, so that there was a free place between the nun and the saloon girl on the rear seat, facing front. The priest squeezed himself into one of the opposite corners, leaving room for the two men. The stage was filled to capacity. Ryan climbed up, released the brake and flicked the reins; Bill settled himself and the shotgun next to him, and the horses broke into a trot.

  
“She’s only going as far as the relay station?” Bill queried. “What for?” He frowned. “She’s old. On her own.”

  
“All we got to do is take her there. And keep those two away from her,” Ryan said. “We get there, drop her off, have our break, and we’ll make Tucumcari by late afternoon.”

  
“We’ll even have time to give the shack a second coat of white,” Bill laughed, handing Ryan his full canteen.

  
Ryan nodded thanks, drank deep, then handed the canteen back and gently tugged the line of the rear off side horse, pulling him back into alignment with the others. “Been meaning to ask you. Why do you say you don’t drive? It’s easy enough, all you need is experience with horses and strong arms, and you got both.”

  
Bill shrugged. “I just don’t .”

  
“I’ll teach you. You’re a fast learner.”

  
“I … can’t.” He’d known he would have to explain, sooner or later. He’d not known it would be so hard. He gazed straight ahead and spoke flatly, one or two words at a time. “Before … that night. We had a two-up wagon. Everyone drove it. My father. My mother. The ranch hands.” He looked down, at his hands tight on the stock of the shotgun. “So a few months before… before, me and Sarah thought we’d go for a ride.” He stopped, swallowed.

  
“I’m listening,” Ryan said, looking straight ahead.

  
“She hitched up the horses as best she could. She took the reins and off we went, peaceful enough.” He took his hat off, ran a hand through his hair. “Until I wrestled the reins out of her hands and tried to get the horses to gallop.” He let out a sigh, then went on without stopping: “They did. Straight into a tree. I was thrown off, Sarah broke her left arm and a couple of ribs. The buckboard broke into three or four pieces. One of the horses had to be shot. My father wanted to whip me. But Sarah said it was her fault. She didn’t get whipped, my parents said she’d already got her punishment.”

  
He closed his eyes, as the memory connected with another one: the front door splintering and falling in, four armed men bursting in, and Sarah giving him a hard shove, pushing him behind the cupboard, out of sight.

  
“She saved my life,” he rasped out.

  
Ryan turned towards him, nodded, and without a word shifted a little on the seat, so that their shoulders and sides could touch. It was almost like when he’d been grabbed, lifted up, carried out of the flames to some sort of safety behind a wagon.

  
_Thank you_ , he wanted to say. But he was almost sure that Ryan could read his mind anyway.

 

 

The relay station was a large corral, a big stable and a house at the bottom of a small valley. In the back yard there were warm water and fresh towels, and inside there were coffee, biscuits and bowls of stew, freshly made by a Mexican woman, the station manager’s wife. Another driver and another shotgun guard were playing cards in a corner.

  
The passengers ate and exchanged information. The priest and the nun were going to start a school for the Mexican kids in Tucumcari. The saloon girl was joining a friend and the two of them were going to work on a double singing and dancing act. The two men were salesmen; they kept staring at Mrs Thompson, who ate slowly and silently, elbows close to her body, eyes on her plate.

  
The smaller of the two wiped his plate clean with a piece of bread, leaned backwards and spoke aloud to no one in particular: “Wish we could make the South great again. Eatin, travellin, pissin with our kinda people. Without …”

  
The station manager’s wife was passing next to him, carrying the last two bowls of piping hot stew. She stopped for a fraction of a second, then stumbled, swayed and fell forward, dropping both bowls in the man’s lap. The man screamed, swore and jumped to his feet; Bill sprang up and grabbed him before he could get to the woman.

  
“Go and clean up before you stink up the coach,” Bill ordered, shoving him towards the door. “We’re leavin in ten minutes. Up to you if you want to travel in one piece.” He sat down next to Mrs Thompson, sending a warning glare in the direction of the other salesman.

  
Mrs Thompson cast Bill a quick grateful look. “You a sheriff or a marshal?”

  
“Shotgun guard, ma’am. I help the driver in case there’s trouble. Not that he really needs it,” he added, with a little lopsided grin. “Anyway, you got as far as here, and now …?”

  
She looked up. Ryan was standing beside their chairs. “I’m fixin to hire a mule to Glorieta Pass and Pigeon’s Ranch.”

  
“A horse and buggy, you mean?”

  
“No. Just a mule.” _That’s all I can afford_ was left unsaid, and didn’t need to be put into words.

  
“You ever _been_ on a mule, ma’am?” Ryan asked, shaking his head. “And what’re you going to do with your things?”

  
“Don’t worry about it. I just need to get to Glorieta Pass.” Her reasons were somewhere deep behind her eyes – maybe things that had happened during the war, or after. Just like deep behind Ryan’s eyes were all the things that had happened to him, whether he talked about them or not.

  
Bill looked from the woman to Ryan. “We’re sorry, ma’am. We’d like to help you, but we got a stage to get to Tucumcari.”

  
“Thanks, but I don’t need help.” Trying to go it alone. As he and Ryan had been. But going it alone wasn’t always the best option, as he and Ryan had begun finding out.

  
Ryan let out a long breath. Maybe his thoughts were running in the same direction as Bill’s. “Hang on,” he said shortly. “Maybe there’s a way.” He crossed the room, conferred briefly first with their card-playing colleagues, then with the station manager, and rejoined them.

  
“All set. Johnson and Flaherty will take the stage and passengers to Tucumcari. Bill and me will take their shift tomorrow. The station man has a buckboard, I’ll rent it and drive you to the Pass.”

  
“You forgot the shotgun guard,” Bill said at once. “I couldn’t let two old people travel alone and unprotected.”

  
Mrs Thompson gave him a stern look. “Who you calling old, young man? Your name’s Bill, right? If you mind your manners, you can call me Lavinia.” She looked from one to the other of them. “Thank you.”

 

 

The road was broad, but old and rutted. The back of the buckboard was even less comfortable than the seat, and Bill was sharing it with Lavinia’s carpet bag and square package. She was sitting next to Ryan, back straight, hands clasped in her lap. The two men waited for her to break the silence.

  
“I clean at the hospital in Santa Fe,” she said eventually, as the buckboard was climbing up a grade flanked by thick pine forests. “Last year one of the doctors told me that the Pass is where Colonel Slough’s troops done fought.” She paused, looked from one to the other of them. “Colonel Slough’s Colored Infantry. My husband and eldest son were in it.” She pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped some dust and sweat off her face. “Before the Lord takes me, I want to see where they’re buried, at Pigeon’s Ranch.”

  
“I was a Union soldier too, ma’am,” Ryan said slowly, almost grudgingly.

  
She thought for a moment, then turned around and looked at Bill. “You was too young to fight. Did your father?”

  
His father. Who had crossed the Rio Grande and been called a greaser, and had married an American woman and worked day and night to give a future to her and their children. And who had been cut down by a bandit’s bullet before he could try to defend his family. “He wanted to fight, ma’am. For the Union. But he couldn’t, because he was in Texas, and he was Mexican-born.”

  
They were going through a tight canyon, with little sunlight and few scrubs. Lavinia was quiet for a second, then continued. “My family was from Texas too. In Mister Dutton’s ranch, there were twenty of us.” She looked at Ryan. “Slaves, I mean.”

  
Bill closed his eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a slave, but he’d heard about branding, and the lash, and broken families. “Ma’am,” he said softly, almost a whisper. “You have any other children?”

  
She nodded briefly. “I had two, a girl and another boy. But … after my husband and eldest son ran away, Mister Dutton had me whipped. He wanted to know who done helped them.” She straightened up even more, invisible steel in her backbone. “I never told him. So he sold us. To three different masters. After the war, when we was all freed, I done tried to find my children. Lord knows I tried. But I never heard a thing.”

  
A half-crumbling sign beside a run-down gate said _Pigeon’s Ranch Battlefield_. The ranch was a couple of dilapidated buildings with a few dried-up trees. Behind them lay a yellow, dusty plain, with sparse patches of grass, thick fir trees in the distant background.

Lavinia looked at Ryan: “Please stop.”

  
Ryan gently pulled the reins of the team: “Are you sure this is it?” In the middle of the flat there was a big, roughly-hacked wooden cross. Beside it, the earth rose in a large bare mound, covered with small rocks. There were no flags, no other crosses. A forlorn place, Bill thought. His mother had had a book of bedtime stories, and that word, _forlorn_ , had been in there somewhere; remembering it now was both strange and, somehow, right.

  
“I knew there was just a big grave with no markers.” Lavinia climbed down from the buckboard and pointed at her package; Bill handed it to her, and she laid it on the seat and started unwrapping it. “Union boys and Confederate boys. Buried together. No difference now, they all a-lying side by side.”

  
The parcel contained a hammer, a few nails, and a thin hardwood board, maybe two feet by three. Bill glanced at it and blinked. Three lilies rose from a bed of green grass, tall and proud on their long green stems; sunlight spilled over them from the left, and there was a fragment of sky over them, with the edge of a yellow-white cloud. On the petals and in the air around them there were butterflies, white, orange and black, blue, bright pink; a few flies were drifting around the petals, and a few bees were inside the flowers, collecting pollen. A couple of petals were dropping off. Another bud was swollen, ready to open. Crowded, colourful life. In that forlorn place of death.

  
Lavinia took the panel and knelt under the wooden cross. On the transverse bar there was a small metal plate with a date: March 26-28, 1862. Lavinia carefully nailed the panel to the upright post. “The Lord knows what religion these men had,” she whispered. “Now they can share a little beauty as they rest.” She stood up, bowed her head and said a quiet prayer.

  
Ryan and Bill took their hats off and stood silently beside her. Bill looked at the cross and the lilies, and saw the three white crosses beside the Meceita Ranch. Some people died for a cause, maybe cotton, or the end of slavery, or states’ rights. Other people died for no reason, because they were in the way of other folks’ plans. And they became bones under grass, or bones charred by fire, and there was nothing left of them, except memories in the minds of those they left behind. Or, sometimes, objects that kept some memories alive: a photograph, a book. A painting.

  
He had no objects. Only memories.

  
He turned a little towards Ryan, and Ryan turned and met his eyes, nodded, and moved two steps to the right so that their shoulders could touch. Memories and friends. It was almost enough.

  
Lavinia wiped her eyes, bowed her head one last time, and climbed back onto the buckboard. They set off in silence, each of them deep in thought.

Bill spoke up after a while. Ryan always told him that he asked too many questions, but some questions could be respectful. “Where’d you learn to paint, ma’am?”

She turned around. “I taught myself,” she said. “My husband tried to paint every scrap of wood he had, with what was left in the tins after Mister Dutton had furniture repainted. And later, I was a maid in a house for two years, and the lady painted pictures.”

“Must’ve taken you a long time, to paint something as beautiful as those lilies.”

“A year,” she said simply. “Had to save hard to buy wood and paints.The first board, what I done drew wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. Second try bad, but nor as bad. Third try lucky.”

A long silence. The Glorieta relay station appeared at the bottom of the hill.

“We’ll remember you, Lavinia,” Bill said. Ryan glanced back at him and nodded agreement.

Lavinia put a light hand on Ryan’s arm, and half-turned to put the other on Bill’s arm. “Remember _them_ too.”

 

 

Lavinia was probably on her way back to Santa Fe on the night stage. They closed the door of their cabin behind them; the world’s problems were outside, they – and their memories and fears – were inside.

“Want to eat anything?” Ryan asked.

Bill shook his head.

“Me neither,” Ryan said quietly. He went towards the newly-repaired shelves, which now safely stored their few provisions. He reached for the bottle of whisky, poured drinks into their two glasses.

“To Lavinia Thompson,” he said, and drank.

“And to the family she lost,” Bill said, and emptied his glass.

They undressed in silence and got into bed, pulling the blankets over themselves.

“Good night,” Bill said softly, and turned over on his side, staring into the darkness and wondering if Lavinia’s ghosts, or the ghosts of those dead soldiers, would join his family in visiting him before sunrise.

“Go to sleep,” Ryan said firmly behind him, and threw a solid, sinewy arm across his chest, pulling him close. So good; almost enough. Bill closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and waited.


	4. Occupational Hazard

The air was cold and a damp fall mist wrapped itself around the stage and the horses. Ryan grabbed the reins, trying not to shiver. Mr Morrison, the bank manager, was standing beside the stage: he was the same age as Ryan, and they exchanged a quick grimace of mutual sympathy.

“Long trip today, twenty-nine miles,” Morrison commiserated.

“We’ll stay the night at the Conchas camp, the miners’ll be pleased to see us.”

“And so will Mr Andrews,” Morrison said. “Miners have been bellyaching.”

“Well.” Bill was securing a small metal box in the compartment under the driver’s seat. “I hear that they ain’t been paid for a couple of months.” He handed his shotgun to Ryan, climbed up and retrieved it.

“Ryan! Bill! Wait!” Janet Fraser rushed out of the office, with a small bundle in each hand. “I finished them last night. Hope they’ll keep you warm.” They were two knitted woollen scarves, a blue one for Bill and a brown one for Ryan.

“Good girl, thanks,” Ryan smiled, putting the scarf into his pocket and lighting his pipe. Bill grinned at her and wound his scarf tightly around his throat, tucking the ends into his jacket. Ryan flicked the reins, and they moved off.

“Good luck,” Morrison said after them.

 

 

The road was beginning to climb, and the view was changing. The red and gold of aspen shone through the mist, and a little further up pine trees were dark-green and tall. The air smelled of pines and falling leaves, and if you squinted you could see some snow on the mountain peaks.

The grade wasn’t too steep, but the horses had to work harder against it, and Ryan had to make sure that neither pair slowed down or stopped.

“Nice scarves.” Bill took his off and looked at it once they were back on flat ground. “Janet’s quite a girl. Keeps the books, cooks, knits, and she ain’t bad with a handgun either.”

“Maybe you should ask her to a church social or something,” Ryan said casually, tugging on the reins to keep the horses away from several big boulders close to the road.

“I should _what_?” Bill scowled. “You out of your mind?” He stared at Ryan, shaking his head in complete disbelief. “And anyways, she’s spoken for, she’s been keepin company with Ramón Valenzuela, from the _hacienda_ down southwest.”

High time to change the subject. “I heard the railroad’s going to buy the land from the coal mine,” Ryan said, blowing a pensive puff of smoke into the air. “They’ll build a town on the site of the miners’ camp.”

“That’s bound to kill off the stagecoaches.” Bill sounded kind of relieved as well. “And what’re we …?”

He stopped abruptly. A man had ridden out from the rocks on Ryan’s side, a Winchester pointed at them. “Reach, boys!”

They had talked about this possibility, almost every night before each trip, and each of them knew what to do. Ryan locked the wheels, wound the reins around the brake, stood up and raised both hands. Behind him, Bill brought his shotgun in line and fired without raising it to his shoulder.

The man shouted a curse and clamped a hand to his right shoulder. His horse screamed, reared and threw him off. The man staggered towards the cover of a stand of pines; at the same time, two other mounted men appeared from the rocks on the other side of the stage.

Ryan made a split-second decision: he jumped to the ground, drew his gun and raced after the first man. He heard the second blast of Bill’s shotgun, then almost simultaneous shots from a handgun and from the Winchester Bill kept under the driver’s seat, then nothing. Bill was good, as good as himself, possibly better; Ryan controlled the tightening of his stomach and concentrated on his pursuit.

The wounded man moved slowly, zig-zagging between tree trunks; he took cover behind one of the pines, shot at Ryan, missed, started running again. Ryan stopped, steadied his right wrist with his left hand, aimed carefully, and fired. The man toppled to the ground, howling and clutching his left knee; Ryan made to move towards him, but hooves pounded behind him, and a gun went off, and searing heat blazed down his left side, from armpit to hip.

He wheeled round, almost blinded by the sudden pain, and in the split second before he could fire he heard another shot and saw the second man crash to the ground, a pool of blood forming around him, and the man’s horse galloping out of the trees, towards the road. Bill ran towards him, smoking Winchester in hand.

“How bad’re you hit?”

“Not bad,” Ryan muttered, truthfully enough. “There were three of them. I winged the first one you shot.” He jerked his head towards the dead man on the ground. “Thanks. Where’s the third one?”

“By the stage. Dead. I got his horse.”

Ryan drew in a short breath. “You left the stage and the box unguarded? Go back, _now_. I’ll take care of myself.”

“Shut up.” Bill unwound the scarf around his neck and stuck his hand into Ryan’s pocket to get the other scarf. He opened Ryan’s coat and inspected the wound: “Hm. Looks like he just grazed you. Lousy shot.”

He pressed the scarves onto the wound, hard enough to make Ryan gasp in pain. “Keep pressing on it, or you’ll bleed to death,” he ordered. “I’m goin back to the stage, I’ll get that lowlife’s horse and collect the man you winged. Ain’t no one around to steal the box. Quit worryin and stay here.” He took off, running fast and lightly.

Ryan leaned heavily against a pine trunk and considered. He bit his lower lip hard – he knew from experience that a small pain could be a distraction from a bigger one – reached into his right boot and fished out his razor. One hand pressing on the bloodied scarves, the other holding the razor, his left side burning and throbbing, blood soaking his shirt and jacket, he lurched from one tree trunk to the next until he reached the man he had shot.

He got there before Bill. The man was half-sitting on the ground, semi-conscious and moaning, knee shattered, shoulder bleeding, handgun out of his reach. Ryan snapped his razor open and bent over him.

“How’d you know what we were carrying?”

The man just shook his head, staring at Ryan like a hare caught in a trap. Ryan placed the blade of the razor against the side of his throat: “I’m going to give you the shave of your life.” He marginally increased the pressure, and a thin, uneven bright-red line appeared on the man’s skin.

“You can’t,” he croaked, his Adam’s apple frantically bobbing up and down.

“Watch me,” Ryan taunted, his lips curving in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s see who bleeds to death first.”

“Go to hell.”

“Tell me who sent you.” Ryan pressed a little deeper, and blood flowed into the man’s collar.

“Morrison,” the man gasped. “And … Mr Andrews.” Jake Andrews, the owner of the mine. “Take … that knife away … please.”

“Right.” Ignoring the agony each movement caused, Ryan stretched out an arm, grabbed the man’s pistol and slammed the barrel against the man’s temple. The man folded, unconscious. Ryan tied the man’s bandana over the flesh wound on his neck, then slid down on the ground beside him and closed his eyes, feeling the pain of his own wound drift away a little.

 

 

“Wake up. Wake up, Ryan, damn you.” Ryan blinked. Bill was bending over him, slapping his face hard, voice wavering between anger and fear. “Don’t do this to me, you bastard.”

Ryan gasped, found his voice. “Stop hitting me. I’m all right. The box?”

“The hell you are. Box’s safe. Let’s get this lowlife into the stage.”

It took Bill a few minutes to get the survivor onto his friend’s horse, lead the horse back to the stage and shove the man, hands tied and makeshift tourniquets around his thigh and shoulder, into the back seat. Then he went back to Ryan, bound up his wound with a piece of his shirt-tails and gently lowered him into the opposite seat.

“Shout out if you’re going to faint.” Bill closed his eyes for a long moment, then re-opened them, squared his shoulders and set his jaw. “Let’s go.” He slammed the door shut, climbed onto the box and cracked the whip. “Turn around, you dumb critters. Move! That way! Go round! Ha!”

The stage made a swaying, wobbling turn on road and grass, lunged on its springs and set off at a fast pace. Ryan held on to the door’s window, almost unaware of a smile that had spread across his face, regardless of pain.

A couple of miles further down, the road crossed a dry wash which hadn’t yet been filled by fall rains. Bill pulled on the reins and the horses slowed down before they plunged into the wash, but once they found themselves in the middle they were unwilling to negotiate the grade on the far side. Ryan heard the whip crack, accompanied by a stream of surprisingly imaginative curses regarding the horses’ ancestry and their probable fate after death. The horses lunged up the grade, the stage shook and rose out of the wash, bounced back onto flat ground and went tearing down the road back to Tucumcari.

The miles fell behind and the stage rocked and swayed along the dusty road. When they rolled into the main street of Tucumcari, Fraser, Janet, the sheriff and his deputy ran towards the stage and pulled the door open. Ryan needed help to step out, the other man was unconscious and had to be carried out.

“Someone get the doctor, fast,” Bill shouted as he pulled the brake, wound the reins around it and jumped down, covered in sweat and dust and looking worn out.

“What happened?” the sheriff demanded.

“Go grab Morrison before he hightails it outta here. He and Andrews and their pal there,” Bill jerked his thumb in the direction of the man being carried to the doctor’s surgery, “have lots to tell you.”

Fraser and Janet helped Ryan into their office, sat him down and gave him some water. Bill went to stand by Ryan’s chair. Fraser looked Bill over, eyebrows almost into his hairline: “Bill, I thought you couldn’t drive.”

“Well. Ain’t all that hard,” Bill muttered, carefully not meeting Ryan’s eyes. “How long before the doctor and the sheriff are through with the man we brought in?”

“Couldn’t say, Bill. Let’s take Ryan back to the cabin and put him to bed, the doctor will come as soon as he’s ready.”

Fraser and Janet bustled out to get their wagon. Bill closed the door behind them and turned around.

“All right. Go on. Say it.”

Ryan leaned back a little, one corner of his mouth lifting under his mustache. “Like I said, you’re a fast learner.”

 

 

“There you go, Mr Ryan.” The doctor finished wrapping a bandage around Ryan’s waist.”You’ve been shot before,” he pointed vaguely at half a dozen scars on Ryan’s back, chest and arms, “so you know how it goes: stay in bed for a day, rest for at least a week, no riding, no lifting, and a few gentle exercises every day to keep the body supple.”

“I’ll see to it that he does them,” Bill promised, pushing a few bills into the doctor’s hand.

“Oh, and before sewing him up I gave him some laudanum, for the pain. There’s some more in this bottle, in case the pain gets a little too strong.” The doctor raised a hand to forestall Bill’s response. “And you’ll see to it that he takes it when he needs to.”

Through the open door Ryan could see the doctor leave, passing the deputy sheriff who was riding towards the cabin.

“Morrison has spilled the beans,” the deputy announced the moment he walked in. “He and Andrews had a heap of gambling debts, and planned the heist together. They were hoping the two of you’d be blamed for it.”

Ryan frowned, thinking of Cavanaugh’s betrayal and Walcott’s scheme to frame him. Was this going to be the last time? He could only hope. “And now?”

“Now we’re waiting for the circuit judge. Morrison is locked up, and the sheriff is heading for Conchas. He sent a telegram to the miners’ committee first, so the boys can make sure that Andrews goes nowhere.”

“Good,” Ryan said.

“Good work, both of you,” the deputy smiled. “We kinda need decent backup, you sure you don’t want jobs as law enforcement officers?” Bill and Ryan didn’t even glance at each other before shaking their heads. “Didn’t figure you would.” He sketched them a cheerful salute and left.

Bill blew out a breath. “Worse than the relay station, all these folk comin and goin. How’re you feelin?”

The sewn-up gash was still throbbing, but the laudanum had helped some. “All right.”

“Wound botherin you?”

“I told you, I’m all right. Go play outside and let me rest in peace.”

Bill ignored the jibe, took one step back and looked down at Ryan, eyes travelling from face to bandages to groin. “Rest,” he said, low and intense, and Ryan wondered if the heat suddenly rising from his loins to his stomach and chest was due to the laudanum. “That means, don’t move. Stay absolutely still.” He slowly went toward the bed and carefully pulled off sheets and blanket.

“What the hell ..?”

“I said, don’t move. And don’t say a word.” He knelt by the bed and, one by one, undid the buttons on Ryan’s long johns, stopping after each button to flash Ryan a small grin. Stunned, Ryan blinked as his cock hardened and rose, moistening as Bill’s fingers closed authoritatively around it and brought the tip to his mouth. Bill’s tongue flicked playfully around the tip, licked around, over and under, and Ryan’s whole body shuddered and pressed down into the mattress.

“No movin,” Bill repeated, giving Ryan’s balls a quick retaliatory tickle before taking him into his mouth. So good, being taken and taking at the same time, being sucked and licked and squeezed, thrusting strong and deep; keeping his eyes squeezed shut to focus on the stabs of pleasure shooting up his spine, and re-opening them to see Bill looking up at him, eyes clear, unshielded, carefree.

He bit his lips to hold back words of tenderness and promise, thrust with all his strength, and spasmed, long and hard. Bill swallowed some and spat some and laughed, and Ryan smiled and ran his hand through Bill’s hair, so thick and soft, even when full of sweat and dust. Then he reached for his tobacco and pipe, on the chair Bill had placed beside the bed.

He smiled again, allowing some of the warmth he felt to show in his eyes. “Like I said,” he drawled, looking down into the bowl of the pipe, “you’re a fast learner.”

 

 

In the morning, Bill was pensive and silent. He helped Ryan get washed and dressed, fried some eggs and made some of the thick, strong, bitter brew he called coffee, ate quickly and pushed his chair back. “I’m goin out. Back soon.” He grabbed hat and jacket, put them on, and was out the door.

He was back within an hour, accompanied by a sturdy middle-aged Mexican woman. Each of them carried a sack of provisions. “This is Consuelo,” Bill announced, plonking the bigger sack onto the table. “She’ll look in on you once a day while I’m away. She’s goin to tell me if you tried anything stupid like gettin back on the box.” He stopped, backtracked. “I’ll be away for a coupla weeks. We’re in Fraser’s good books, so he’s given me the time off.”

“ _No te preocupes, guapo_ ,” Consuelo reassured him. “I have an old father and three brothers. I know how to deal with … you say _grumpy_? men.”

“Warnings taken.” Ryan puffed a cloud of smoke in Bill’s direction and gave him a long look. “And you’re going …?”

“Back to the Meceita Ranch. To sell it. So when I get back we might think about buyin a little land, and maybe buildin a house. Or even buyin this here shack, if you like it.”

“I’m not going to retire,” Ryan said drily. “Neither are you, as far as I know.”

“Of course we’re goin to keep workin,” Bill said, going a little pink under his suntan. “It’s just … Aw, hell. See what happens. I’m outta here. You take care of yourself, you hear?”

 

 

Night was falling. Before going home, Consuelo had insisted on helping him carry a chair out on the wobbly boards that were supposed to be the porch. The provisions Bill had bought included a bottle of whisky, and he had taken a glass out with him. He took his pipe out of his pocket and lit it, savouring the taste and smell of burning tobacco.

Rest, Bill had ordered. He’d been resting for nearly a week. It was kind of restful to be alone. Not to have to go anywhere or do anything but sit, smoke, and every now and then read a newspaper, or one of Jack Fraser’s books. Not to be told that he snored, or that his coffee was horse piss. Not to be teased, challenged, pushed.

It was kind of boring too.

He was getting to know Consuelo, and occasionally he practised his inadequate Spanish with her. Sometimes he met Fraser at the saloon, and they had a couple of drinks and talked about the sentences passed on Morrison and Andrews, or Fraser’s dead wife, or Janet’s wedding plans. Fraser was happy to talk and didn’t ask many questions. He had said that Ryan had to wait at least another week before getting back on the box. And that for the first couple of weeks after that he’d have to ride shotgun, while Bill improved his driving techniques.

Alone in the cabin, sometimes he was visited by memories of Nebraska, or the war, or his time in jail, and he let most of them in, accepting that they were part of him. Other memories stayed buried, at least for the time being, and didn’t bother him too much. And when the memories had come and gone, he’d step out on the rotting boards of the porch and wonder how hard it would be to replace them with new, fitted planks; or he’d look at the wall opposite the fireplace and wonder how it could be chinked and painted over. Bill would find out how, he enjoyed doing things with his hands and was good at it. And Ryan could help him.

Ryan’s pipe had gone out. As he tapped it on the arm of his chair to loosen the ash, he heard himself whistle a soft tune. The fiddlers’ music. No, Haydn’s String Quartet, Opus Three, Number Five.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical note: The town of Tucumcari was founded in 1901, and this story is set around 1882. However, since Tucumcari is specifically named in one of the initial scenes of Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More (set a few years after the Civil War), I thought I could also take one small historical liberty.
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> Thanks to Timberwolfoz for wonderful help with language; Linda and Kees for Americanisms; Sybilius, Stephantom and Elfbert for help with some content problems. Special thanks to Roxana for sending me all those wonderful pictures.


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